Monday
Jan022012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill No news at the NYT
Jan 2, 2012 Climate: CRU The New York Times reports on the raid on Tallbloke Towers and considers what more we have learned about the identity of FOIA. Conclusion: not very much.
Update on Jan 2, 2012 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Tallbloke has responded here.
Reader Comments (16)
Even with this article, it seems have published more words about the leak, rather than what was leaked.
Looks very much like one of Phil Space's articles during a No News period.
The only thing I find noteworthy (although never surprising) is the enormous presumption and complacency reflected in the quotation from Michael Mann:
“It seems to me the authorities wouldn’t have acted without some actionable intelligence,” said Michael Mann, a scientist at Pennsylvania State University who specializes in climate modeling and whose messages came in for particular scrutiny in 2009. “They must know something that we don’t yet know.”
He has (so far as anything in the public record or his own remarks would indicate) NO IDEA what the authorities do or don't know, why they raided Tallbloke etc. Yet, he can utter with such smug self-assurance this assertion that there ***must*** be "actionable intelligence" prompting this raid. Actually, Mr. Mann, you know nothing of the kind, but your blind faith in your own invincible certitudes is most suggestive of a slovenly cast of mind....
"...private emails..."
"...cleared the researchers of scientific misconduct."
It was a genuine effort to read past the opening lack of journalistic integrity, and to be honest, not worth it.
It appears Tallbloke got his stuff back!
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/the-empire-hikes-back-the-return-of-the-pooters/
Now did he originally get visited because of his post here?
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-chosen-few-climategate-2-0/#comments
tallbloke says:
December 9, 2011 at 11:09 am
The rozzers haven’t been along to feel my collar yet, this time round. I got interviewd in early 2010.
Truth Seekers everywhere salute the courageous Whistle Blower(s) for the marvelous efforts in exposing the truth about these people.
We hope for more releases soon.
Perhaps someday the identities will become known, just as the identity of Deep Throat from the Nixon era eventually became known.
Until then, Vaya con Dios!
This is the reporter that led to this post at TAV and a mirror at WUWT
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/their-side-bloggers-knew-foia-emails-were-coming/
There is some speculation that she was investigating the fallout from the bizarre posts by Frank Swifthack at
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/05/collated-a1b-model-runs/#comments
This led Steve Mosher to speculate that Frank knew something or alternatively triggered FOIA to release another batch. This got some discussion at
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/tallbloke-the-air-vent-climate-audit/#comments
Blogged here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/nyt-article-on-climategate-ends-with-mann-innuendo/
Actually, Tallbloke, that article carries a whole bunch of innuendo.
The article has a quote by someone from Greenpeace, about concern for developing countries shown by FOIA. Just to remind FOIA, only Greenpeace has the right to be concerned for developing countries.
Thanks Your Grace.
The slightly odd non-sequiteur where I am quoted as saying I didn't wish to issue a denial should have been prefaced by:
"In response to repeated emails from Leslie Kaufman asking if he was 'FOIA' tallbloke said"
It is amazing that you get an anti-Nuclear, anti-GM, anti-Development, unelected pressure group getting the space to tell us their opinion on what they "smell" about the concern shown by the FOIA whistleblower. It's moments like these that I feel sure the contemporary accepted jounalistic discourse around this subject will be surely seen as surreal, twisted and bizarre by future histroians.
"...galvanized skeptics who challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is under way."
The CAGW advocates and their poodle press insist on misrepresenting their opponents. Certainly the 'consensus' of skeptical climate bloggers is that global warming has been "under way" since the end of the Ice Age - the skepticism revolves around the causes and rates of global warming.
But then, the NYT also uses judgmental words like "thief," "hijacker," "hacker" and "denier" to describe a person whose motivations are as yet unknown - but whose actions more objective journalists would describe as "whistleblowing."
Re Mann's quote
Nothing new there then. Good to see Rog has his computers back though.
Over at the Climate Central blog, Andrew Freedman comments on the NYT article, centering his analysis on the prospect that "investigators may be closing in on Climategate suspect". I posted there the following comment, that I think is also relevant here:
Suppose the police actually find the hacker/leaker/whatever. But the impact on public opinion of the email themselves, and what transpires in them, does not depend on whether that person is found or not. It depends on the contents of the emails.
It does not depend, either, on the outcome of the various inquiries held in the States and the UK, both in academic institutions (like the UEA and Penn State) or in the British Parliament on matters surrounding those emails. All said inquiries were rather cursory. Even so, some of them actually found things to have been improper on the part of the scientists (for instance, in the UK it was found that scientists violated freedom-of-information rules, but no further legal action was possible because of the short period allowed by the FOIA statute of limitations in the UK). The main damage to the credibility of climate science, in fact, comes from the evident effort to conceal data and code from possible critics, and maneuvering to have certain papers admitted into the references for the next IPCC report while keeping other papers out, either out of the IPCC list of references or altogether not published. Another matter of concern was that doubts on various scientific issues, expressed in private by the relevant scientists writing the emails, awkwardly contrasted with the bold certainty on the same issues displayed by the same scientists in their public writings and utterances.
Thus, finding or not finding the hacker/leaker/whatever is not really all that important. The most important matter is the analysis of the emails themselves, and their implications. To my knowledge, none of the inquiries did that. The contents of the emails have been scrutinized mostly in the blogosphere, most notably on Climate Audit but also elsewhere.
Added value to that shown by Hector M is that the emails are guideposts to the chicanery of AR5, see ZOD @ the Galloping Camel.
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'surreal, twisted, and bizarre'. This is an 'Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd'. And we are still living the dream.
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